


No Straight Roads

by C4LIC4T



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Earth C, Horses, I know 3 things, Kinda canon compliant, M/M, Post Game, another example of cali is awful at tagging for your enjoyment, cowboy, cowboys horses and yeehaw, dirk thinks too much, jake is a beacon of hope in a sea of despair, notable horses include fictional replicas of my own, uh, yeehaw
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-17
Updated: 2021-01-17
Packaged: 2021-03-15 04:33:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,008
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28807374
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/C4LIC4T/pseuds/C4LIC4T
Summary: After the game, Dirk finds himself devoid of the knowledge of what needs to be done. In the months following, a lot happens. It leaves Dirk exhausted, and it takes nothing short of Roxy's persistence to get him out into the world again.After all, what better time to live out some old forgotten dream?Mission get Dirk Strider on a horse onto a horse and into the mountains of Earth C is a success. Little does Dirk know that while he's secluded in a quiet camp, one of his many torments would be joining him. The very same Jake English that he knows he broke the heart of in the game. Can they fix things?Playlist for this ficHere
Relationships: Jake English/Dirk Strider
Comments: 3
Kudos: 16
Collections: DirkJake Big Bang 2k21





	No Straight Roads

So, the world ended. Several times over, even. You’ve spent the last year recouping from the absolute shit show of your life up to this point. The people you had been dying to meet your whole life have been met, and now they’re doing their own things. You, however, spent months trying to figure out what to do with yourself now that you don’t have a specific goal in mind. Game? Check. Meet friends? Check.

You’ve taken the hollowness of your life to heart. The first week where nothing suddenly dropped out of the sky to try and terminate you left you on edge. When you sit on the roof and look at the stars you can’t find the constellations that you used to be able to see. The quiet bustle of people and consorts going about their daily lives left you restless. From sixteen years of total isolation to being thrust into God-dom of an entire planet's worth of creatures and people that look up to you like you’re deserving of the title of Prince. The TV show took a lot out of you, and you found yourself bitter and mean more times than not. It felt, well, bad. Like you were detached from yourself in the worst way. 

Your friends, now, have settled into a routine. Jane is busy with her baking empire that she’s spread across the new planet. You and Jake had a TV show for a little while, but you soon became aware it wasn’t fun anymore and you fucked off. Rose and Kanaya got married and have their own thing going on with the setup to let trolls reproduce. You think Dave is doing god knows what with English Jr. Harley? Harley. Roxy has her thing going on and you can’t bring yourself to insert a socially inept version of yourself into the mix. It took her practically eons to convince you out of your new residence to go do something. Something other than building robots like you haven’t taken yourself out of the danger zone of drones dropping in to destroy your feeble human life.

Taking yourself out of the spotlight helped. You holed up in your home, workshop hanging a thin veil of solder smoke and fumes from the propane torch you were using just minutes before. Your hair gets stuck to your welding hood as you make better articulation than you could with rudimentary parts. The corpses of the robots you’ve been building are starting to pile up. You’re restless and unhappy. When Roxy reaches out to you, the high dive you took into talking to her would have scored a ten out of ten several times over. She talked you into taking a vacation a la Jake style. She’d picked out a destination she thought you might like, and if you’d say yes, all you had to do was show up.

Now, you’re sitting in what looks to be a high desert, cradled by mountains, with people walking around busily. There’s a wood barn stretching away from you in the way that cartoon buildings do. You suppose that’s just how your mind is seeing it. Like John’s anime dreams. There’s a steel rail curving around the end of the barn with rope slathered around it and you catch the glint of steel rings in a couple places. The mountains rise out of the sand blasted terrain around you, debris settling against rocky outcroppings and the debris birthing trees from the wad of dirt at the base. It’s eldritch horror roots sprawling out and burying themselves into solid rock. You hadn’t seen anything like this on your Earth. There’s people brushing by you and chattering, all more comfortable and at home than you could dream to be here. There’s the unmistakable sound of hooves on concrete and you look up. A tall curly haired girl is leading horses out one by one. There’s kids running down the aisle and your reaction matches the one the horse has. He tucks his butt and skitters along the pavement until he’s far enough from the kid to feel safe. Can’t blame him. 

You cringe when someone passing by plops a hat down over your hair. She smiles wide, her wide rosy cheeks full of laughter at your (probably) fairly sour face. Your hair is mashed flat against your skull, but you catch a glimpse of yourself when you walk past a window. You… Don’t hate it, you guess. When you make it through the long barn aisle, the other side greets you with three sides of a square, yourself backed into a corner. There’s horses tied incrementally around you, with the dry dust bleeding into a lush green pasture. Through the grass there’s a thin trail meandering its way out of your sight and into the maw of a canyon. The rocky outcroppings sport a few trees, but not much else. It looks like there may be some scrub brush or something.

The young girl with laughing cheeks grabs your attention again. 

“Mister Prince, you’re gonna ride Winchester. You just gotta remember ya hosses name!” Her voice bounces around you like the cheery plunking on a banjo. 

You nod solemnly, and she laughs at you, jumping to pat the brim of your newly acquired hat down over your eyes. A smile bleeds onto your lips. You’d spent too much time wallowing in so many thoughts of what to do next, you’d never even considered enjoying now. It was Roxy insisting you should all have some fun and her, no, their insistence that got you out of the house. The tall girl with curly hair is pulling horses from the rail and calling out the horses name. She calls for Cherry, Whiskey, Ruger, Ember, and finally, your horse's name. Winchester. 

It’s lost on you how the names pulled from the old west on your planet and Dave’s planet. You dutifully climb the steps on the block. Winchester is as wide as he is tall, his grey black coat starting to fluff up around the edges of his tack. His mane is a messy and thick white like sea foam. He looks less than impressed with you from under his forelock. The girl, Kim, gives you some half hearted directions and you step onto your mount. His broad head swings around and his nose touches your toe. It’s a soft gesture, but it reminds you how much smaller than this horse you truly are. His nose is wider than your foot, several times over. He could easily just bite you. He does not. Winchester swings his head back to center and Kim gives you directions to gently bump his sides with your heels and to pick your hands up to get him to stop. You do as instructed for once in your life. The slow walk Winchester gives you is less than impressive, yet it awakens the part of you that you thought you’d lost. 

The impressively lazy beast has brought out that spark of adventure you used to have with Jake. You urge him away from the mounting block with a twist of the wild excitement crawling in your insides. The girls are gathering the last of the people on the roster onto their own horses. Collectively almost everyone is milling around idly. Some of the people who seem to know what they’re doing are circling around the trees outside the fencing. You stay put. 

Winchester doesn’t seem to mind standing at the rail with you on board. In fact, it’s almost like he would prefer to sit here without having to put any more effort in than have to pack you around like an overgrown toddler. It’s the sharp whistle that gets your attention, and your horses. Kim shouts out directions, putting you near the front with her, and shuffling everyone else in order behind you. The executive decision to go out sans shades is hurting your soul. It makes you blend into the crowd, sure, but at what cost? 

When you start up the trail, Winchester follows behind the little red horse in front of you at a respectable distance. He doesn’t stray or wander from the narrow path. Ahead of you, the tall girl, Kim, starts talking to you. She turns her back to her horse's path, looking instead back at you. 

“Do ya believe in ghosts?” She starts. You look up at her.

“Ghosts? Which kind?” You know of at least two ghosts in your party. The fractured splinter of yourself living rent free in Jake’s head, and the troll ghost that has come back god tier by now. You know at least a million alternate versions of yourself and others died fighting Lord English as well. 

“The shades, you know, the ones who died wrong and they watch the world change around them until justice is served up all righteous on the ones who did them to the grave.” That doesn’t really sound like how you imagined being told what a ghost was would go. You roll with it because you’re cool like that.

“Sure, I guess. I don’t see why they wouldn’t. I’ve seen weirder.” There’s an incredulous look on Kim’s face. You have to laugh when she swings a leg over her horses back to sit her saddle backwards. Her horse doesn’t miss a beat, this must be typical.

“You heard about the moonlight waltzers?” There’s a grin on her face that eats up her features a lot like Terezi’s. Part of you thinks that regardless of your answer she’s going to tell the story. You play along and shake your head. 

“Ah, I knew it! The story goes somethin’ like this- back when the world was brand new and the people were scarce, the towns stayed little. Not like the big cities the kingdom mostly has now. Little like this one back here.” 

Her hand sweeps out at the landscape, gesturing to the highway you can see from here, and the small cluster of a fittingly western town in the bowl of a valley that cradled miles of farmland from what you can see. You nod approvingly.

“There was a young man, executed for a crime he didn’t commit. The way they usually tell the story is from his point of view, but all he does is sit around the cemetery after he dies and mourns his own life, mourns what he saw as the most attractive man in town. They say he murdered his wife to spite her family. I don’t think that’s quite right. If you’ve ever been in the cemetery, you can see the grave of the waltzers. They were named after the creators, the both of them. Back then though, they didn’t like the idea of two guys getting together, so they drove them away from each other. They couldn’t be lovers when the population was already so slim pickin then. I don’t see why, but that’s ‘side the point.” 

You shuffle around as your horse walks, brushing you lightly on the thickening scrub brush. Kim is still sitting backwards, looking ahead occasionally to direct which fork in the trail her horse took. 

“Anyways, the guy who was executed for his wife's death didn’t do it. He married the gal as a favor to his family. To make up for the shame his momma felt about his real feelings. Don’t make no sense to me, but that’s how it was like. They buried the gal on the hill, and Jake was imprisoned. He spent the remainder of his days there. Lamenting the sour bit of luck he’d gotten. The state provided him with a horse size dose of tranquilizers and a cocktail of the gods to meet his maker. From there, he sat around until he discovered his lover had been found dead years prior to his execution. He floundered around the graveyard until he found his lover's grave. It was absent of his lover. The story drags on about how helpless and lonely he is and yada yada, who cares. Years later though, after sitting and thinking through everything he wishes he did, one day the grave is occupied. His lover’s sitting up there on the top of the mausoleum like he owns the damn thing, guess he does. They run or float or whatever to each other and cry. They’re cryin’ because nobody can tear them apart ever again, it just took figuring out what they really wanted from each other to get together again. They tell the kids if you run to the top of the hill and share your first kiss under the arch of the graveyard, that your love will be tested for its truth. If you pass, you’ll be together through thick ‘n thin.” 

She finishes the story with a dreamy look on her face, tanned features starting to bloom with the inevitable sunset that is appearing faster than you thought it might. The sun is drowning slowly in the high arches of the tree line above you. There’s a coolness to the air this high up. Winchester lurches as he clambers up a stone outcropping to catch up to Kim’s smaller horse, who’s as nimble as a mountain goat. Your horse’s feet are twice the size of your hand, and even from here you can feel his head radiating off his dark coat. 

“That’s certainly a story. Have they always named people after the creators?” You ask idly, more focused on how your lumbering mount carefully picks his way across the top of the mountain. You trust that he’s done this enough times to not send you plummeting off the edge of the rocky crest into the valley below. Keep your eyes up, Strider. It does no good to watch his feet. 

“Sure they have! Why wouldn’t you want to saddle your kiddos with the expectation to live up to actual Gods? People have favorites, though: Roxy, Dirk, Jake, John, Kanaya.” She explains, “Missed your name earlier, but since Jenny was callin’ you a prince, I’m assuming your name is Dirk too.”

“That it is. The one and only Dirk Strider.” You let your mouth fall into a soft smile. She doesn't look like she believes you. 

“And I’m John Egbert himself. Good chattin’ with you Dirk, but we’re gonna have to agree to disagree that a freckle-faced kid like you is a literal god.” She laughs out the words. It almost hurts. 

The crest of the mountain smooths out for a moment, the trail descending into the valley like a thread on a needle tossed carelessly over the landscape. It’s crisp tan line buries itself into the trees on the other side, disappearing without a trace into the brush. It takes your breath away in a way that not much has since you first saw Jake’s land during the game. Kim may not believe you, but you know you are- were- the hero. One of them at the very least. You sorely missed the stir of adventure. The air of excitement and adrenaline when a new landscape, a new challenge laid itself out in front of you like a puzzle at a retirement home. You miss doing that with Jake. Exploring and plundering the tombs on his planet. You think maybe you should try it again. It’s not like you’ve talked to him much since the trickster incident, and there’s a lot of things that have happened since then.

Your horse stalls at the next level spot on the trail, heaving for breath. You didn’t realize you were breathing hard too. Kim’s horse is stopped ahead of you, and she’s taking the opportunity to drink from a bottle of water she’d fished from a saddle bag. You mirror the action, feeling the cold of the water sink true to your core. It grounds you to the situation. Winchester sits for a moment, and then of his own volition continues onwards. He plods along the trail with little to no effort from you, and for once you’re grateful that you aren’t in control. Four legs are more steady on the loose rock than you think yours would be right now. Your hands are even shaking with the prospect of talking to Jake again. Where would you even start?

The ride moves on smoothly, the horses in the back taking their sweet time to cross the thin stream that carved it’s path across the trail. It seems like all of these horses have stopped to take a long drink from it’s slow burbling out of a rock face. The miniature waterfalls compel you to get a drink from your warming bottle of water. As darkness creeps into the valley and the sun sends it’s last rays of hope into the sky, you can see the makings of a camp spreading out around you. As soon as you’re in camp you try to gracefully dismount. You come off stiff and land too hard on your feet. The shockwaves leave you unsteady on your feet, and you grapple at the stirrup of your saddle to steady yourself. There’s two groups, it turns out. The ones who stopped at the crest of the mountain and rode home tonight, and those who were going to camp here tonight. There is going to be another group that would arrive tomorrow, but Roxy had told you to clear your schedule for a week. After your very graceful dismount that (hopefully) nobody saw, you’re not sure if you could sit like that for 6 more days. 

Winchester’s head is as long as your torso, and probably just as broad as you are thick. He gently nudges you with a surprisingly soft nose. It feels like warm velvet and his breath is damp and hot. It’s nice that he seems to care. Kim is at your side in a few minutes, and shows you how to strip him down and clip him onto what she calls a high line. It’s a cable that’s strung tight across two trees. Under it is a shallow trough of water and a pile of hay. It looks like there’s another bucket on top of that with some pellets. He’s grateful for you carefully taking his bridle off, as you’re cautious not to click the metal bit against his teeth. He drops his nose into the headcollar you were given, and you clip it to the long cotton line hanging from the cable. Your mount teeters and lays down, coating himself in dust. He covers you in dust as well. Surprisingly, you’re alright with that.

You find that the rest of the camp, a grand total of yourself, Kim and one other guy who is so uninterested in you or anything else happening right now that he’s off to one side, staring up at the sky. You look up. 

There’s a wide fish-eye lens of stars twinkling down at you. Holy shit. They’re gorgeous. There’s a swath of galaxy through the middle, the condensed stars creating a milky static, the stars spattering across the sky like freckles across your nose. You helped make those. You sigh and bring yourself back down through the maw of toothy pine trees this forest offers around you. The smoke from the campfire Kim has started wafts upwards gracefully. This is so much different than looking at the stars from your apartment. You suppose that makes sense. They’re not the same stars. This isn’t the same planet. Not even the same universe. 

Kim whistles low to get your attention. There’s a cast iron skillet set in the fire. It’s crackling softly with a thick slab of meat in the middle. 

“So if you’re a Strider, you must be good with a sword. I’d like to see you play Fruit Ninja with these potatoes.” She motions to the small pile of potatoes there and you find yourself a little insulted that she still doesn’t believe you. Obliging, you drop your katana out of your strife specibus and flick it gracefully through the potatoes. You don’t bother with identical pieces but they’re about bite size when you’re done. She raises an eyebrow at you. You shrug. The sword falls into your specibus again, effortlessly. 

You move to help her idly with dinner. It goes by quietly, with another ghost story told over the campfire. The others head off to bed early. You find that there’s several tents pitched, each with a highline by it. That makes your tent the one with your horse nearest to it. Fine by you. 

The fire stretches warmly up into the sky. You slouch against the logs piled up to the north. The embers start to look like a warm orange sea with the blackened shell over the top spider-webbing and cracking outwards. The smoke rises to the stars, hazing the galaxy overhead. You doze off for a short while while the drying heat of the fire curls across your skin and draws the night’s cool air out of your core. Where you’re slouched, the ground is warm and dry. The shadows flicker and stretch over the unfamiliar silence. Occasionally, you hear a horse snort or the faint sound of their swishing tails as the night settles truly into darkness. You pitch a few sticks into the fire, watching the sparks flutter into the night sky and die out. Another few sticks make it into the fire from where you’re sitting. The effort you’d have to put in to get more outweighs the desire to settle where you’re at until the heat is too far away from you to stay comfortable. You hoist yourself up and kick a secondary ring around what’s left of the fire. It’s mostly burned out by now and in bare dirt. It’ll be fine. 

The sleeping roll in your tent is rolled out already and you strip down to your shorts, reveling in the cool mountain air that’s already gaining a familiar weight to it. For the first time in a very long time, sleep comes easy.

The morning comes with an unusual quiet. At least, unusual to you. Sunlight dribbles into your tent through the thin canvas sides. You can clearly see the texture across the floor. Your horse is quiet outside, though once you’re fully awake you can hear the rhythmic sound of him eating. Normally you’d hate the sound of chewing, but from a horse it almost lulls you back to sleep. You’re only kept awake by the knowledge you’re going to have to get up at some point. The air is still cold. It’s crisp, like biting into a cold apple. 

Morning goes by quietly as well. You can smell coffee at the campfire. It pulls you from your bedroll with reluctance. Pulling boots on, you head out. The grass around your horse has a thin layer of dew on it, the droplets clinging to the grass. You can see his hoofprints clearly through it, and Winchester whuffles softly as he looks up at you. Seeing you with nothing new to offer him, he drops his head to graze again. 

You settle at the campfire, and you’re handed a plate with eggs and fried bacon with a cup of black coffee. The steam wafting off your food and coffee trickles into the air and you take a moment to appreciate the beauty of the valley Roxy’s hijinks have landed you in. Trees stretch out of the campsite and climb up the trail you came in on. There’s a shallow meadow off to where the sunrise crawls out of the trees. The forest is shaggy around the edges, smaller trees coming out of nowhere as the campsite stretches into the mountains away from civilization. You’re actually relaxing, head feeling heavy on your shoulders as you sip your morning coffee.

The day passes slowly. You’re letting the horses recover. You venture out just far enough to truly isolate yourself in the forest. Trees stretch away from you, their thick aging trunks reminding you of how long it took for you and your friends to get here. The world built itself without you here, what makes you think it needs you now. There’s a lot to think about, and you keep finding your thoughts coming back to Jake. How things ended with him. It certainly wasn’t pretty and you’re regretting how things happened. You start to plan like he’s going to take you straight back. A second thought comes, and that one hurts more. What if he wanted nothing to do with you after realizing that he had other options? Maybe he figured out that you had more baggage than a single person or even a small army of people could carry among themselves. 

The trail you’re walking stretches thin as you break the tree line again. It spreads into another shallow meadow that boasts what seems to be hundreds of bugs hopping through the forage. You keep trudging on, your legs burning and your lungs reminding you how far you’ve slacked off since coming off your personal hell of a planet. The solitude is comfortable though. You can think and talk to yourself all you want. A thin stream cuts through the meadow here, a log bridging the water, and a clear path for the horses cut through beside it. You opt for the log. 

After the sun breaches overhead, you figure you ought to head back. The worst of the heat of the day has come and gone. The light is starting to shift the shadows into thin tentacles of darkness across the pale dirt. You hadn’t seen anyone since breakfast, and it strikes you that you hadn’t said anything about going out in the mountains meadows. You remind yourself that you’re conditionally immortal and dying of bear attack or rattlesnake bite isn’t exactly heroic or just.

You spend plenty of time dwelling on that while you hike back to camp. The horseshoe shaped camp is eerily quiet. Or it is until your ears pick up the sound of metal on rock. There’s another group coming down the mountain into your valley. There’s more horses in this group, several of them wearing packs of supplies rather than riders. Set at the back of the pack, with a broad smile upon his tanned features is none other than the result of your mulling.

There’s Jake, sitting on a bay mare you think is called Ember. She was in the string yesterday, if you remember right. His smile is captivating as he takes in the campsite. You can hear him chatting with the girl with smiling cheeks. She’s smiling, as you’d expect her to be. It’s hard not to smile with Jake’s hopeful stories radiating energy all the way around him. It’s everything you have in you not to slink back into the forest to rot among the stumps. You drag yourself back to where your tent is pitched. Winchester is staring down the horses coming down the hill. From where you’ve perched yourself on a log, out of sight, you can see Jake talking with his hands, the way he does when he’s excited. Something in you sighs, like letting out a breath that leaves your chest empty with a pang of, well, longing. You guess. 

Winchester whinnies at the string, each horse's head raising and their steps pausing as they descend the last bit of trail. Half of you is mortified. The other half is grateful. You see Jake’s eyes scan the scenery and lock onto the horse just to your right. Hopefully he doesn’t see you here on your log. Hope is definitely his thing, and you can’t exactly pray to the gods. You’d have to answer to yourself, and all of us know how that would go. Exactly as well as you’d imagine, probably. You forcibly pry your eyes off the subject of your pining as the horses continue on their merry way, picking their path carefully so not to upset their riders. There’s a hush over everything. Thanks, big guy. You drag yourself from where you were sitting, the other two members of the camp milling aimlessly as they wait for the three additions. 

The other riders descend into the horseshoe shape of camp. Kim and Jenny are pointing out where to go and how to untack and clean up their horses. You get tasked with hauling water to each horse, keeping their buckets full up. Luckily, you don’t have to hike all the way back to the river. There’s a spigot at the back of camp by the outhouse you definitely knew was there this whole time.

You keep yourself out of the way, trying to stay unnoticed and unremarkable. Your hair is styled only by the fact you slept on thinly veiled dirt and a somehow comfortable bedroll. Without your shades, there’s a part of you missing, you think. It doesn’t feel like someone would even recognize you without them. Like Dave’s shades. Wait, maybe that’s a bit too similar. Maybe more akin to Rose being more recognizable with Kanaya at her side, even with the changes to her appearance. You know Roxy isn’t as recognizable as she used to be, with her hair now cropped short and tight. She’s adopted the Strider shades, though hers sit on the bridge of her nose like a statement, rather than a part of her. She’s taken to Dave’s style too, and if you’re honest (and you are), you think she’s closer with the kid version of your bro than you are. Which makes sense, given his past. You feel a wave of guilt wash over you like the tide. 

You know that you’re not responsible for the splinters of yourself you didn’t directly create. His bro was shitty to him, not you. Still, that scares the everloving hell out of you. It becomes clear that you’ve been standing, with an idle animation of working your fingers in the hem of your shirt. Part of you reminds yourself that you’re not a video game character anymore. You finished the game. Game Over. Let the credits roll, Dirk. 

Jake has stripped his horse by now, and you’re still sulking just out of the main camp. Standing around like an asshole, no less. You take a deep breath of mountain air, and relish the dryness of it. It’s so different from your apartment in so many ways. You’re safe here. 

Before you can get lulled into your idle animation sequence again due to lack of input, you slip into the evening sunshine. Jake looks up immediately as you break that threshold, and in the seven seconds of silence that follow, you see him go through all of the stages of grief. You expected nothing less.

“Dirk?” His voice graces your ears in a meek manner, like he’s unsure it’s you. It’s the shades, they’re just an integral part of your brand. 

“The one and only.” You answer, as if you weren’t just having a soliloquy in the forest as if you were subject to someone's narration. That would be incorrect though, wouldn’t it? You’re the driving force behind your own thoughts this time. His hands find themselves at the back of his neck, eyes cast like a fishing line. That is, as far away from the situation he’s in as he can get it. 

“Ah, I wasn’t exactly expecting to see you here. Not that it isn’t great that you’re enjoying this spot of nature, because it’s good to see you’re not sulking around on a planet as forgiving as this one. Roxy had said that this bit of wilderness had some mighty fine treasures, and by golly, I’m going to find them.” He pauses, as if he’s just caught onto her play.

You shrug. Roxy is the glue of your friend group. You know for a fact that she had something to do with this. She’s too smart and cunning and a whole list of other flattering adjectives to not be behind it.

“By golly, you’d think she set us up.” He sounds surprised. Your face remains carefully indifferent. 

“You’d think,” you parrot, catching yourself staring. Absent shades be damned, that was some tactless staring, Dirk. There’s several too many seconds of awkward silence. You settle into that same idle fiddling of your shirt hem. Jake glances you over as if he’s comparing the version of you that has been sitting and working exclusively on robotic projects for months to the ideal you he has formulated for himself. The you that fought drones, and dropped into an apocalypse with an enthusiasm that you hadn’t felt before. The version of you that stayed stone faced and pessimistic through some of the first interactions with humans at arms length you ever had. Your first kiss through a severed head. You wonder if he’s disappointed in this new you that’s gotten a little soft, at least physically. 

Kim clears her throat off to the side, breaking the silence that fell over the two of you like a lead blanket. She looks confused, a saddle settled over her hip. 

“I take it the two of you know each other somehow?” Thank you, for stating the obvious. There’s a few more seconds with Kim’s eyes burning lines into you as she sizes you up.

“Jake English and Dirk Strider, creators. You’re not just named after them, are you?” Her voice is accusing, as if she weren’t the one not believing you. 

Suddenly Jake looks almost surprised, his eyes bouncing between the two of you quickly. Then he starts laughing. Your eyes grow at least three sizes at the outburst. Kim looks at him, offended. You’re still shrunk up with your fingers knotted in the dirty hem of your shirt. Jake laughs for a few seconds too long, having to catch his breath. 

“Well, little lady, seems like we both got buffaloed into something we didn’t know about.” His smile is lighting up a halo of hopeful energy. You can feel it tug at your chest in a way you can’t quite understand. 

“Aw fuck, I was tellin’ one of the creators stories about that creator’s ghost boyfriend.” You and Jake meet eyes. It’s only a few seconds before you’re snickering. Hand covering your mouth.

His eyes flit over you and he chuckles a little uncomfortably. It’s not like you don’t know about one of several splinters after the game. It breaks the tension at least. Kim unapologetically throws the saddle on her hip at you and you catch it in the least comfortable way possible. It definitely didn’t knock you back a step. Her cheeks are red and she points you at the little bay horse Jake came in on. You can take a hint. She pulls Jake away from you and into the center of camp. Dutifully, you pack the saddle over and lean it, like you were shown, against the tree closest to her with the horn pressing into the soft dirt. 

You can take a deep breath then, and Jake’s horse raises her head to look at you with an expression on her features that screams that she’s already tired of people that don’t know anything, and you’re no different. The pull of Jake’s unconscious hope halo is making you ache with feelings you’re not ready to share, but you shrug at the horse staring you down. 

“What am I supposed to do?” You ask her quietly. She shakes her head. There’s only so much time she’s willing to stare at you. With a snort, she continues grazing and ignoring you. The hand on your shoulder just about makes your soul leave your body. Yep, there it goes. Your soul just climbed up the side of the nearest tree like a cat being chased by a persistent dog. It hisses and swats a paw in the air.

“I’m led to believe you’re supposed to be getting ready for dinner, chap. I know I’m getting mighty hungry after a full day in the saddle with this little lady. It’s rare it goes that way round!” That stings, your cat self in the tree hisses in your head. Bring it back down here, pussy cat. 

“How ready do I have to be? Have a therapy session with my daughter, or sit at a dinner with three strangers that don’t know who I am, and someone who knows me more than anyone else on the planet already?” Yep, those are the words that just came out of your mouth. Your mental cat wishes it could eat it’s own vomit right now.

Jake looks at you like you’ve just grown a third arm out of a hole in your neck. You decide you better check with your normal two arms. Nope, no extra appendages coming out of the back of your neck. Christ, he’s still watching you. 

“I, uh, better go get ready for dinner then.” You start, and flash-step past Jake into the nearest vacant space and disappear into your tent to take a breath. That could have gone exponentially better. In fact, it probably would have been better to sprout a third arm and eat your own vomit than to repeat what just happened. You’re just gonna stick it out in your tent and starve to death here in the wilderness. That’s the best plan. You’re the best at planning. 

You don’t get to live out your dreams of decomposing here in the forest to never have to look at Jake again. Or anyone you know, for that matter. In fact, anyone ever. You could just peacefully become a mound of mushrooms, or something equally cool. Because you, Dirk Strider, are the epitome of coolness and a master of irony. You definitely aren’t a hot mess that just word-vomited so hard you hacked up a piece of your heart for Jake to see. That’s absolutely not what happened. Kim fetches you soon enough though and dashes those dreams. Her expression when she sees you is hard to read, even on her fairly expressive face. As you slink out of your self imposed prison cell of five whole minutes of incarceration, you get struck by the view, again. The sun has crept behind the mountain fully now, and the coolness of the light casts a softness to everything around you. The very tops of the rock formations at the crest of the mountains are dipped in a warm orange light that’s fading fast.

The other five members of camp encompass a small fire, the coals raked out to cook on and a small pile built up in the middle. The fire is small and calm, flames dripping upwards into the stars. The embers disappear like meteorites streaking across the sky. The warm light catches the features of everyone here. It catches the strong lines of Jakes jaw and cradles it softly, the way you’d like to. He’s telling a story, and you walk carefully, so as to not disturb it. You can feel the ebb of warmth across the bare skin of your face from the fire. It pulls the moisture away from you, and it feels like coming home. You’ll have to see if wood fires are something you could bring back to your house in the kingdom.

Jake finishes his story. This is one you know. He’s telling them about his adventures on his island with Brobot shadowing his every move. The way he tells it is infinitely more interesting than any that you could tell of sitting in your apartment, soaring above an endless ocean. He settles back against the log he’s sitting in front of. His boots shuffle to rest against the stones containing the fire. 

Kim jumps in, guitar settled against the log beside her. Jake’s eyes brush over you, and your chest pulls all weird again. Kim scolds you for not eating and drags you into the ring of logs where some people are perched on top, and others are sitting on the ground leaning against them. With a plate shoved in your hands, you opt for the latter. Jake shoots you a look. You shrug at him, forking a potato and cramming that in your mouth to stop yourself from vomiting more words at him.

There’s a moment you can’t help but to savor the taste of real, fire cooked food. You let your eyes settle into the fire. You think about the years of your life you lived on rations that were hundreds of years old by the time you were even there, much less able to figure out how to combine them. It’s truly a puzzle to how you survived. Especially as an infant. Your earliest memories involve the broad TV screen that took up the majority of the wall in your room. You can faintly recall your Bro’s voice, talking you through things. At the beginning it was just him teaching you to talk. It must have been weird to talk to a camera and load the files onto a TV that wouldn’t be used for at least a hundred years. How did the technology survive so long in the salty air above what was then Houston? 

You’re faintly aware of Kim picking at her guitar. You’re idly picking at your food, letting the fire draw the cold from your bones as it seeps out of your heart into your body. You feel the tidal pull of Jake’s bright hope, and the push of the thoughts that darken at the edges. Eyes smoothly trace the line to Jake. He looks so much more in his element, smiling softly in the firelight, tin plate perfectly perched on his knee. The warmth highlights him beautifully. You know things didn’t end smoothly (or restart smoothly) on this planet. Part of you has always thought that the group would be better off without you since the game is now over. You’ve served your purpose in-game. Your consciousness is still floating around in the form of Halsprite, and that’s enough for anyone. 

Jake’s eyes flit over you where you must have been giving a thousand yard stare just past his shoulder. There’s a flash of worry across his features that you just catch. You stab a piece of what you think is pork belly. It just about melts in your mouth. Food is so good. Something about the fact it was cooked over a fire in the woods is making it so much better. Even good food from the city isn’t touching the realness of the meals in the mountains. There’s just something about it. It makes you feel less like you’re drifting idly through things. Like you’re real somehow. Part of the world you created. The appeal of old world cowboying isn’t lost on you. 

When everyone else heads off from the fire, you and Jake are the last ones out. The fire is low, and you’ve since chucked some wood on it, savoring the way that the flames lick and swallow the dry wood up. The tendrils of smoke curling in graceful wisps at the tips of rust red flame. There’s an almost comfortable quiet. You’ve spent a lot of time watching the fire engulf the wood, and now that it’s charred evenly across the washboarded sides, you catch Jake getting up. Part of you is expecting him to just leave, head to his tent, get some rest. What he does instead is sit near you. Not too close, though - about an arms length away. The log you’re resting against shifts slightly when he drops down against it. 

“So, from what I’m gathering, Dirk, is that Roxy sent both of us up here in the mountains together after months of radio silence from you. I haven’t heard hide nor hair of you in months and here you’re sitting up here quiet as a grave.” He talks like he’s frustrated. That cold wave settles over you, lapping at the comfort that settled into your chest 

“I haven’t exactly had anything exciting to talk about, Jake. I’ve been sitting at home, building robots that do nothing.” You answer honestly. He looks like he’s just been slapped.

“Nothing interesting? Nothing interesting? You’ve just been holed up like a groundhog waiting for spring, just doing nothing. How about seeing your friends every once in a while? The rest of us still exist. You don’t have to spend our time tinkering and building bots that have no purpose but to exist. Haven’t you realized that every bloody fuckin’ thing on the planet is different?” 

You did, really. You kick at the dirt a little bit. 

“I did, in fact, notice that I was no longer in the middle of an ocean that used to be the only thing I knew outside my apartment, yes. That doesn’t change that everyone has been occupied with things that didn’t require me. You have Jane. Roxy has Calliope. Dave has his plate full with Jade and Karkat.” 

“Well by golly, we still want to see you. You’re as bad as John.” His words come out in a huff, and they sting a bit. You know for a fact that the other Harleybert has been holed up just as long as you have, if not longer. Maybe it’s a good thing you’re out in the middle of the forest now instead of back at home. 

Silence falls between the two of you, the awkwardness you brought upon yourself feeling like lead weight in your ribs. It holds you down to the earth with a tide of guilt. The heat pulls away from you, and your knees shuffle themselves closer to your chest. 

“I didn’t think you’d want me around,” you admit. You’re thousand-yard staring into the embers again. Jake is looking directly at you, and you can feel his eyes burning into the side of your skull. 

“Now why, on this god-forsaken Earth, would you think that of me Dirk?” His voice has softened with the string of silence between you. Your shoulders hike up into a dismissing shrug. His hand finds itself on your shoulder, fingers too tight. 

The fire keeps your eyes for now, and Jake gently pulls your shoulder back so your chest is closer to facing him. Your eyes trail along a branch in the fire and up his legs. Your gaze falls out of his lap into the distance. 

“You know, despite everything, you’re still my friend, at the very least.” The words sting. You feel the lead in your chest sink into your stomach. Suddenly, your dinner feels like it’s in your throat. Jake’s free hand finds your jawline, making you look up at him. His face is so soft, and you can remember how his mouth feels on yours. There’s such a temptation to kiss him right now. You can’t imagine that’s the right answer though. The firelight catches in his irises, the warm tones sparkling like the sun on the water. You miss the ocean a little bit. 

“I know, I just…” You trail off as his thumb smooths down your cheek. He’s drawing you in and the heaviness in your chest is surrounded by the writhing of snakes of guilt. Jake’s lips are soft on yours, a chaste kiss. When you freeze up in his hands, he draws back, eyes searching yours for answers. 

The corners of your eyes sting with fear, or more accurately, tears. You didn’t realize how close you’ve been to crying this whole time. Maybe staring into the fire was keeping them at bay but now you’re sure he can see the weakness in your features. The squeeze and heaviness in your head the way it gets when you’re on the verge of sobbing. He looks like he’s trying to find the answer to every question he’s ever had in your eyes. You don’t think he’s going to find them.

“Dirk, it’s over, you don’t have to fight for your life anymore. You’re allowed to just take a bloody breath and let go.”

“Let go? You want me to let go of the first sixteen years of my life where I regularly had things sent to kill me, and the only company I had was my brother, who’d been dead at least a hundred years before I even hit the earth? My whole life I waited for the game, Jake. Now what? There’s nothing left. I never planned past the game!” Your voice breaks into a sob and you can’t make yourself look at him. You can feel the tears pin-pricking your eyes and it isn’t until you see the droplet hit your jeans. Fuck.

Jake doesn’t move, the hand on your shoulder slack and out of touch with your movement. 

“I…” He doesn’t finish, just bodily pulls you into his arms and crushes your whole torso with his arms. You hate that he can just drag you in with seemingly little effort. Your face is crammed into his shoulder, and it takes you a minute too long to drag your arms around his neck. 

You’re like that for a few minutes, trying to hold yourself together a little bit, failing. Jake has you wrapped tight in his arms, nearly crushing you into his chest. It’s not until he hiccups that you realize you’re not the only one experiencing an emotion. Usually you don’t bring your emotion, singular. You keep it tucked away for later, and when you do have to break it out, it gets a bit messy. 

When you finally feel the sting in your muscles from being held at an angle, you wiggle from Jake’s grip. He lets go slowly, and then all at once. His eyes are on the ground. You find yourself looking with him, as if you’re trying to find something in the soft tilled dirt around the campfire. Spoiler alert, there’s nothing new there. The silence hangs over the two of you like a blanket of fog over the ocean in the winter. It’s suffocating and even at the top of the tower, you sometimes didn’t see the sun for days. The air was heavy and cold, the visibility so low you were paranoid. This feels similar. Like you’re vulnerable and unsafe for reasons out of your control. It’s not a good feeling. It’s Jake who moves first, his hand gently moving over yours on the ground.

“I think we both have a lot of things to work out, Dirk. I think we both rushed into things. Maybe we can fix things. Between us, I mean.... If you want to. I’m sure Rose and everybody would want to see you more, and there’s just…” He lets himself trail off as the gusto from the beginning dies in his breath. 

You flex your fingers under his. He gives, like he always has. You take a deep breath. All the years of pining for human contact. The nights you stared up at the stars with Hal pointing out the constellations and relaying Jake’s messages to you. His playful interjections teasing you for your obvious crush. The waves of peace that came with Jake’s shared experience of being alone on his island, and you on yours. The static of the TV in your room as you cried, begging for the videos your brother left you to play one more time. To fix the corruption. For just a little bit more time to hear his voice. Jake easing your nerves by blindly rushing into a story about an encounter with some lusus on his island. 

There’s another silence that hangs between you like a weighted thread. You take the initiative this time and reach for his hand, carding your fingers between his to hold them. The clarity of his expressions, what looks like shock brushing over his features before thick brows knit themselves together. You realize you’re staring before he does, and your eyes flit down. 

“I think maybe that would be a good idea. Take things at a more normal pace.” Your voice is detached and measured. You wish the pain in your mind could cross the carefully modulated voice you’ve built for yourself. It doesn’t though and Jake looks almost hurt at your tone. You flinch internally. This isn’t going the way you want it to. Your free hand reaches for his jaw and when he flinches, you freeze. For a fact, you know you’ve never reached out to him in anger. Someone has, between the end of the game and now. That burns against the inside of your ribs like a hot iron. He leans his head into your hand after a brief pause though, and you take a second to just relish the feeling of his face, warmed by the remnants of the fire in your palm. The start of stubble under the pad of your thumb. 

You lean forward and kiss him, softly. He melts into your touch, and the two of you hold the chaste kiss for a few seconds before you carefully break it off. Jake laughs softly, his breath brushing over your face. 

“I’ve missed you, Strider.” He says it with an air of sincerity you can’t remember a conversation with him ever holding before. Part of you can’t bring yourself to believe him. You know things ended on poor terms with poor circumstances. The posturing. The need to impress him all the time. Your drive to finish what you’d been waiting your whole life for. It burned you out. It burned both of you out. 

“I missed you too, Jake.” Your voice is softer this time, the edges of the cool façade falling away some, to allow your voice to break its usual monotony. Jake reaches for you this time and your hands fall behind his neck somewhere as he kisses you again. 

There’s a lot to catch up on, and new ground to break. As the fire burns down, you go your separate ways. The morning will bring coffee, and hopefully, new energy. The important part is that the first step got made. Some things do, in fact, start out with a kiss.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you again to everyone who made this big bang happen! You guys pushed me creatively in the best way!
> 
> Thank you to [Andy](https://marigoldprince.tumblr.com/) for the art for this submission!


End file.
